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The total spending per person covered in employer-sponsored health insurance in Tennessee in 2015 was below the national average, but people paid more out-of-pocket than in other states, according to a new study.

Tennesseans who get their insurance through work spent an average of $928 in out-of-pocket costs in 2015 — $115 more than the national average, per an annual report from the Health Care Cost Institute. That does not include the monthly premium that people pay.

Yet in the same period, the average spending per person, including money spent by employers or insurers, was $5,041 in Tennessee, or $100 less than the national average of $5,141.

The total spending per capita increased 4.6 percent from 2014 to 2015, which surprised Amanda Frost, senior researcher for the HCCI, because the increases from 2012 to 2014 had been relatively stable. And much lower than prior to the recession in the last decade, Frost said.

Still, Frost there "appears to be a period of relative stability" in costs and spending associated with employer-sponsored insurance.

The out-of-pocket spending includes people who spent no money on claims in the 2015, which Frost said, was about one-fifth of those in the study. Under the Affordable Care Act, people may get an annual physical with no out-of-pocket expense.

The findings underscore the continued rise of health care costs is largely driven by prices, Frost said. There was, however, an increase of utilization of services in 2015 from the year prior. The report looked at about 4 billion claim lines from about 39 million people in 18 states, including Washington, D.C.

Spending on prescriptions and administered drugs increased, even though more generics, which are cheaper than brand names, are being used.

In the South, spending on brand name prescriptions increased 10.7 percent per person from $645 in 2014 to $715 in 2015. The spending on generics also increased over the same period from $336 per person to $341.

The research also found that employers and insurers have been picking up larger amounts of prescriptions from 2012 to 2015.

The cost of administered drugs, which could be chemo or anything else that doesn't come from the pharmacy, surprised the researchers. From 2012 to 2015, the spending on administered drugs rose from $158 to $190 per person across the country — an increase that Frost hadn't expected and will be watching in the next report.

There's been an overall decline in emergency room visits since 2012, though the decline is not across all age groups. There are fewer children going to the ER but the number of people aged 55 to 64 making trips is remaining steady.

There is a shift in how employer-sponsored plans are structured to high deductibles, which place more financial obligations on workers before the employer, or insurer has to pay. More employers are choosing to be self-insured, which means the premiums paid by their workers fund a pool to pay for claims, rather than pay into a larger pool that includes other businesses.

Most people across the country get insurance through their employer. In Tennessee, 82.5 percent of workers are covered through employer sponsored plans, according to the University of Memphis.